19 March 1917: The Proclamation of Baghdad

Lieutenant General Sir Stanley Maude

The following proclamation was issued to the inhabitants of Baghdad on March 19, 1917, by Lieut. General Sir Stanley Maude, shortly after the occupation of the city by British forces.

To the People of Baghdad Vilayet:

In the name of my King, and in the name of the peoples over whom he rules, I address you as follow:-

Our military operations have as their object
the defeat of the enemy, and the driving
of him from these territories. In order to
complete this task, I am charged with absolute
and supreme control of all regions in which
British troops operate; but our armies do
not come into your cities and lands as conquerors
or enemies, but as liberators. Since the
days of Halaka your city and your lands have
been subject to the tyranny of strangers,
your palaces have fallen into ruins, your
gardens have sunk in desolation, and your
forefathers and yourselves have groaned in
bondage. Your sons have been carried off
to wars not of your seeking, your wealth
has been stripped from you by unjust men
and squandered in distant places.

Since the days of Midhat, the Turks have
talked of reforms, yet do not the ruins and
wastes of today testify the vanity of those
promises?

It is the wish not only of my King and his
peoples, but it is also the wish of the great
nations with whom he is in alliance, that
you should prosper even as in the past, when
your lands were fertile, when your ancestors
gave to the world literature, science, and
art, and when Baghdad city was one of the
wonders of the world.

Between your people and the dominions of
my King there has been a close bond of interest.
For 200 years have the merchants of Baghdad
and Great Britain traded together in mutual
profit and friendship. On the other hand,
the Germans and the Turks, who have despoiled
you and yours, have for 20 years made Baghdad
a centre of power from which to assail the
power of the British and the Allies of the
British in Persia and Arabia. Therefore the
British Government cannot remain indifferent
as to what takes place in your country now
or in the future, for in duty to the interests
of the British people and their Allies, the
British Government cannot risk that being
done in Baghdad again which has been done
by the Turks and Germans during the war.

But you people of Baghdad, whose commercial
prosperity and whose safety from oppression
and invasion must ever be a matter of the
closest concern to the British Government,
are not to understand that it is the wish
of the British Government to impose upon
you alien institutions. It is the hope of
the British Government that the aspirations
of your philosophers and writers shall be
realised and that once again the people of
Baghdad shall flourish, enjoying their wealth
and substance under institutions which are
in consonance with their sacred laws and
their racial ideals. In Hedjaz the Arabs
have expelled the Turks and Germans who oppressed
them and proclaimed the Sherif Hussein as
their King, and his Lordship rules in independence
and freedom, and is the ally of the nations
who are fighting against the power of Turkey
and Germany; so indeed are the noble Arabs,
the Lords of Koweyt, Nejd, and Asir.